Hell-bound

Here we have it - the single most ugly doctrine in the history of the world.  The idea that you will be punished and suffer eternally after you are dead is surely the biggest of all big sticks - the nastiest of threats.  With this, the church has terrorised untold men, women and children into following its teachings and giving it their money.

Look, let us allow that there is a little evidence for Christianity being true.  We have these ancient books.  But they really are not solid - they do contain contradictions and absurdities.  It is quite valid not to believe them to be more than myths.  So it is obvious that any person who uses his or her mind to question the evidence is fairly likely to come to a reasoned conclusion: there is insufficient evidence on which to base a life-choice.  All I am saying here is that a good, thoughtful, honest person is fully justified in reaching that conclusion based on the available evidence. 

But look at the punishment for disbelief! Eternal torment!

I can't think of any crime that would merit such a sentence.  It is horrific - it is an evil doctrine. The thought-crime of not believing something is punished more severely than a thousand genocides.

The list of people who are apparently going to this fearful place includes some truly wonderful, noble, sensitive and kind individuals.  We have scientists, poets, authors, artists, (such a pointless list - obviously it includes men and women of every discipline), beautiful, loving people who have had hearts of gold.  And it includes the friends and relatives of religious people, too.

But religious people can't believe this doctrine!  For if I knew that another person - even a stranger - really was destined for eternal torment, I would crawl over broken glass to save them.  Yet, how lightly Christians speak their words of condemnation over others! How few tears they shed.  This doctrine rips the heart out of people, makes them insensitive and ugly.

How did the myth of Hell arise?

You will search in vain for mention of Hell in the Old Testament.  The Jews talked about the grave as a final resting place.  But between 538BC and 330BC something happened.  They were exposed to the myths of another religion, that of the Zoroastrians.

Zoroastrianism's highest significance lies in the influence it has exercised on the development of at least three other great religions. First, it made contributions to Judaism, for between 538 BC (when the Persians under Cyrus captured Babylonia and set free the Jews exiled in that land) and 330 BC (when the Persian Empire was destroyed by Alexander) the Jews were directly under the suzerainty of the Zoroastrians. And it was from the suzerains that the Jews first learnt to believe in an Ahriman, a personal devil, whom they called in Hebrew, Satan. Possibly from them, too, the Jews first learnt to believe in a heaven and hell, and in a judgment Day for each individual (Lewis Browne, This Believing World, New York: MacMillan Company, 1926, pp. 216, 217).

Influence on the Bible Of all the other nine extra-Biblical living religions, Zoroastrianism is the only one from which a definite religious belief has been borrowed and included in the Bible. Consistently throughout the Old Testament, the ultimate source of everything, including evil, is represented as the God Jehovah. But a distinct change took place after the Exile. A comparison of two parallel accounts of [the census] of King David will show that a post-exilic document (1 Chronicles 21:1) substitutes "Satan" for "Jehovah" in the pre-exilic account (2 Samuel 24:1). Thus Satan is not an original feature of the Bible, but was introduced from Zoroastrianism. Perhaps certain other innovations besides the idea of a Satan were adopted from Zoroastrianism by the Hebrews after they had come into direct contact with that religion in the Babylonian Exile: for example, the ideas of an elaborate angelology and demonology, of a great Saviour or Deliverer to come, of a final resurrection and divine judgment, and a definitely picturable future life. Certainly Jesus' word "Paradise" (Greek, paradeisos, Luke 23:43) was, at least etymologically, derived form Persian origin (Avestan, pairidaeza) (Robert E. Hume, The World's Living Religions, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, rev. ed., 1959, p. 200).

Chain Letters

You have only to look at chain letters, internet spam and the curses of gypsies to recognise the type of mind that would come up with the doctrine of hell.

"Do this and good things will happen to you. Don't do this and bad things will happen to you." This is the core of what keeps Religion propelling itself, like a virus, from one generation to the next.  It is a massive chain letter.  Any goodness, any hope or comfort it brings is merely a bonus.  The central fact about Religion is that it gets itself passed on.

Such talk is typical of gurus the world over, through all of history.  Jesus was the first Biblical character to talk about Hell.  In fact it is the only new doctrine he himself introduced to the Bible's pages.  Everything else had either been said before, or was said after he was dead.  So we can thank him for this ugly chain letter.

To be fair, Jesus was just talking the language of his day.  The concept of hell had been fashionable in Jewish circles for about 300 years before he was born.  But he is the first in the Bible to mention it.

We have no more reason to fear hell, than we have to fear Thor, the Vikings' god of thunder.  People believed in him 1000 years ago.  Hell is a myth from over a thousand years before that.  The whole idea of Jesus ascending into Heaven, or descending into hell, comes from a flat-earth belief - ignorance about the cosmos.

Recognise Hell for what it really was: a tool of control.  With it, the priests could control you and you had no escape, for they could threaten you and hound you even after your death.  Imagine the nightmares that have been induced in children over the years because of these teachings.

Geoff Mather 2007

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